


Anything But This

by karmula



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Lesbian Character, Canon Lesbian Relationship, CommanderLexasWeek, Deviates From Canon, F/F, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Lexa Lives, Mild Sexual Content, No One Dies Ending, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 05:42:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6226198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karmula/pseuds/karmula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I hope you were sure about this,” Clarke says.</p><p>Lexa’s eyes crack open slightly, so she can see Clarke through the haze of her lashes. All that is visible is the blonde halo of Clarke’s hair; if it weren’t for the sweet, familiar timbre of her voice, she would assume it was an angel, come to free her from the pain in her thigh, and now in her neck. Maybe it is, she thinks, and feels her mouth curl involuntarily.</p><p>“We are all given a choice, Clarke,” she says, what’s left of her voice breaking as it finds its way out through dry lips, as desperate to be heard as she is to live, despite the throbbing pain that has yet to subside. “I chose you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anything But This

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day Two: Favourite Relationship of [#CommanderLexasWeek](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/commanderlexasweek) on Tumblr, because when I said I shipped Clexa; when I said I wanted undeniably canon Clexa; when I said I wanted a healthy, canon, reciprocated lesbian relationship; it should have been obvious that I wanted anything but this. Basically, this work is a big fuck you to Jason Rothenberg and the 100 – fuck you and your shitty, lesbophobic, bury-your-gays-trope writing – and a big I love you to Clarke, to Lexa, and to everyone who I know has been hurt by this episode as much as I have. We will get through this. It will get better. We will mourn, and we will get through this, and one day we will prosper. That much I can promise you. Until then, this is all I have to offer.

Time is frozen here, in the commander’s chambers, and yet nothing about it is at all cold.

Warm orange light sets every surface it touches aglow, and two lovers’ bodies burn beneath furs and blankets, pressed flush against one another. Tiny motes of crystalline dust hang suspended in the air, rotating slowly, and the room is filled with a deep, musky scent. It is almost as if this moment has been dipped in amber, submerged and left to solidify by some unseen hand, and while they both know it is only a matter of time before another – or perhaps the same – comes with a hammer to smash it open, to leave perfection shattered into a million tiny pieces exposed to the harsh, unrelenting winds of duty, none of that seems to matter.

“What you were saying… before,” Clarke begins, tracing a hand lazily over the blue lines of the commander’s tattoos. The skin there feels exactly as smooth as it did everywhere else, and yet something about it is still so different, so… special. Maybe it’s just their tribal significance, their political power, the weight these elegant designs place upon the leader of the twelve – thirteen, Clarke hastily corrects herself mentally – clans that makes touching them feel like it's sending sparks of electricity running up and down her spine, but Clarke can’t help but feel it’s something different, something more.

Then again, maybe it’s just touching Lexa that makes it, makes _her_ , feel this way.

“I thought you said we didn’t have to talk,” Lexa interrupts, rolling over and smiling, her head propped up on her elbow. The furs have fallen to her waist, the soft tresses of her hair flowing loose and free over the sun-dappled skin of her upper body. Warm light falls on her face, passing in bars over her features. It illuminates her eyes as if from within, highlighting the glow that Clarke now sees has always been there.

“It isn’t about what we were talking about before, I promise,” she says, and Lexa laughs, husky and gentle.

“Go on, then. What was I saying before?”

“You started saying… You said, ‘That’s why I–’, and then you stopped.”

Lexa’s eyes widen, then narrow, and she draws a breath. “You know what I was going to say, Clarke.” Her chest rises and falls shallowly, unevenly, and she is looking at Clarke as if she is the sun.

Clarke nods, smiling. “I know.” Her hand, still caressing Lexa’s arm, slides down until it slips into hers, and she squeezes. When she speaks next, it is in a whisper, one that tickles the peach fuzz of Lexa’s upper lip and presses warm against her cheek; that is how close they’ve gotten. That feeling of having been caught in amber returns, though it had never really left, and everything is hot and stifling even as the world falls away. “I just want to hear you say it.”

For a moment, Lexa looks as if she’s going to comply, her full lips parted like she’s about to say something, but then she closes them again and exhales heavily through her nostrils instead. “You must go soon,” she says, diverting her eyes. “Octavia, your people – they’ll be waiting.”

Clarke bites her lip, her gaze flickering down for a moment to stare at Lexa’s swollen, pink-bitten mouth. “I know,” she breathes, and surges forward to kiss her again. “Sometimes I wish,” she murmurs, in between kisses that leave her so weak and fuzzy all she can think is that she’s grateful for the fact that she’s lying in bed, “that they wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t what? Wouldn’t wait?” Lexa echoes, dragging her lips down to Clarke’s jaw, then her neck. “Wouldn’t look to you for guidance? Wouldn’t rely on you to save the day? Wouldn’t need you to be Clarke of Skaikru, the infallible?” Her hands are in Clarke’s hair, tugging gently, a raking of fingers through a golden waterfall. “That isn’t the Clarke I know. That isn’t the Clarke I l–” She cuts off mid-sentence, suckling at the sensitive skin of Clarke’s collarbone, and her unclad breasts brush against Clarke’s bare stomach, eliciting from her a startled gasp.

“There you go again, with the unfinished senten– hey! Ow!”

Lexa pulls away, smirking as Clarke rubs at the spot where she has bitten her, already turning pink. “So not fair.”

The commander chuckles, looking up at Clarke through her lashes. “Maybe not, but if I was, would I be the Lexa _you_ know?”

“No, I guess not.” Clarke sighs, wrapping her arms around Lexa and pulling her closer, so her chin rests on the crown of her brunette head. “But sometimes… I wish. That I wasn’t Clarke of Skaikru, that you weren’t Commander Lexa of the Thirteen Clans. That who we were… didn’t matter. Didn’t mean we have to give up on what we want. That we could be anyone we wanted to be, with anyone we wanted to be with.”

A pause, then: “Me, too. Maybe one day, neither of us will owe anything to our people any longer.”

They stay like that for a time that could be half a minute or an eternity, Lexa’s head on Clarke’s chest, ear against her heart, hands tangled in each other’s hair and thumbs tenderly stroking each other’s skin. Their smell, musky and raw, a combination of the union of their bodies and the fibres of the blankets under which they lay and the sweet oils that they have used to soften their hair, fills their nostrils until it is tangible, undeniable evidence of their connection. Clarke wraps one of her legs around Lexa’s waist and holds her even tighter, aching to have as much of her skin as possible in contact with Lexa’s.

Then, abruptly, Lexa shifts, sitting up in the bed with a movement that is both gradual and sudden, some sort of realisation dawning bright and clear on her face.

Before Clarke can object, Lexa speaks, and her voice is coloured with equal parts hope and grief. “Maybe we can.”

Frowning, Clarke cocks her head. “Can what?”

“Be who we want to be.” Lexa smiles, opening her mouth to continue –

Just as a bloodcurdling scream rings through the chamber, one that sounds so pained it is nearly inhuman and yet strangely familiar.

Clarke’s heart skips a beat in her chest, her pulse seeming to simultaneously pick up the slack as it races in her wrist, her throat. She sits up too, not bothering to clutch the furs to her chest, and grips Lexa’s tattooed shoulder so tightly her knuckles peek ivory through her skin.

“ _Murphy?_ ”

* * *

Hastily clothed and hand in hand, they stumble through doorways until they find him, lashed upright to some sort of crude restraining apparatus in an empty room. From the look on Lexa’s face, her eyebrows knitted together and her lips pressed into a tight line, pure confusion and that notorious commander’s fury because _How_ dare _a Skaikru person, a member of the_ Coalition _, be held here without my knowledge, how dare he be bound and cut and –_ from that look, Clarke knows she has had nothing to do with this, and the momentary doubt that had risen in her chest like a serpent at the sight of Murphy has coiled again, dormant.

His eyes are sunken deep into swollen skin and circled with deep rings of sickly violet, half-closed and hazy beyond the purple lids. Old wounds on his face gape open as if they have not been allowed to heal, still leaking sticky blood and tracking rusty stains across his cheek and jaw. It looks as if he has recently put up a great struggle – _the screaming,_ Clarke thinks – but the restraints have held fast anyway.

 _Someone has gone to a lot of effort to keep him here_ , Clarke thinks grimly, exchanging a look with Lexa, who wears a matching expression on her features. _But who?_

“Murphy!” Clarke cries again, an exclamation now, rather than a question. She rushes over, bending to examine his restraints. They have bitten into the fragile skin of his wrists, slicing them open where he has strained against them, and are now crusted with dried blood.

“Clarke,” he rasps through cracked lips. His eyes widen fractionally when he feels her fingers on his hands, when he realises she’s really _real_ and here and oh God, finally, somebody’s _here_ , and then focus upwards, above Clarke’s left shoulder, on Lexa. “What are you – what is _she_ doing...”

“I’m here, Murphy. Don’t worry, we’re gonna get you out of here, and I’m going to take you back to Arkadia with me, okay? I promise.”

“Who brought you here?” Lexa asks sharply, and Murphy flinches away from her voice, hard as iron. “Who did this to you?”

“She means well,” Clarke reassures, sensing his doubt as certainly as she smells the angry iron tang of his blood. “She wants to help you just like I do. I’ll explain it all later, okay? I’ll–”

Another voice echoes through the chamber, cold anger vocalised. Murphy flinches again, the voice drawing from him a pained groan that is both frightful and enraged, enough to tell Clarke that this is who has imprisoned him here. “Step away from him!”

Clarke whips around, her question – _But who?_ – answered without a doubt when the silhouette in the doorway steps into the light and exposes himself, brandishing a gun that looks alien in his hand, far too smooth and shiny and mechanical to be clutched in his weathered warrior’s fist and yet, there it is, clear as day, and pointed unflinchingly at Clarke.

“Titus,” she hisses, at the same time as Lexa bursts out, “ _Titus!?_ ” and moves to stand protectively in front of Clarke as she works frantically to free Murphy.

“I beg of you, get out of my way, Heda,” Titus says, tightening his grip on the gun. There is something in his eyes, something wild and flickering and blazingly hot that reminds Clarke of an enraged beast, of a frenzied animal, and yet he is as still as stone, without a tremble in his whole body. It is beyond unsettling, bordering on terrifying; Clarke’s breath catches in her throat when she realises the barrel is pointed directly at Lexa’s chest.

“Where did you get that?” Lexa asks, stepping forward. “That is a Skaikru weapon. What are you doing with it? Put it away!”

“I’m sorry, Commander. I cannot. Please, step out of the way,” he repeats, a shake so slight Clarke thinks she might have imagined it in his voice.

“Lexa, do as he says,” Clarke urges, moving on to Murphy’s feet as she meets Titus’s eyes and feels her blood run cold. “Move, now.” She shifts almost imperceptibly, so that she is squatting a little higher on her haunches, not really fiddling with Murphy’s restraints any more, since his hands are already loose and he is doubled over, working to remove the ones that bind his ankles.

“I will not!” Lexa replies without turning around. When she speaks, it is in a shout, shaking with rage. “Titus, I am your _commander_. I am ordering you, now; drop your weapon! Do as I ask!”

“I cannot,” Titus says again, and clicks the safety off with his thumb. “I cannot allow them to leave, Heda. I am sorry.” Agonisingly slowly, he moves his index finger to the trigger, wraps it around the smooth, cold metal as if in slow motion.

“Lexa, move!” Clarke shouts, and dives forward, knocking the commander off her feet. They tumble to the floor, and Titus, seeing an opportunity, seizes it.

The gun goes off with a bang, and the bullet, instead of hitting its target, buries itself in Lexa’s left thigh.

“No!” Clarke screams, rolling to her feet and kneeling over Lexa, who lies on her back on the stony floor, chest moving in staccato heaves as she grips at her thigh where her clothes have been soaked through with crimson. Clarke looks over her shoulder, eyes blazing. “You see what you’ve done!? Help me, goddamn it, _help me!_ ”

The gun falls to the floor in a clatter as Titus rushes forward, mouth gaping open uncomprehendingly. His eyes shine with unshed tears, unblinking as he bends over, hands resting on his knees as if to stop himself from collapsing. “Heda – no, I – it wasn’t for you, Heda –” he gasps out, only to be interrupted by Clarke.

“That doesn’t matter now, just help me get her to the bed!” she orders hoarsely, her voice breaking. Followed by Murphy, they carry her into her quarters and lay her on the bed, Clarke already ripping her shirt – the one Lexa had so lovingly pulled over her head only minutes before, the one that had been left in a puddle on these very floors as Lexa trailed her kisses down and across Clarke’s ribcage – into strips that she winds around Lexa’s upper thigh in a hasty tourniquet. She fumbles a little, her fingers slippery with something bright and red and slick, but manages to tie it tight enough to stem the blood flow a little.

“Titus!? Tell me you have something, a – a poultice, medicine, something we can use to seal the wound. The bullet looks like it’s gone straight through, if we can just –”

“Yes, of course, I’ll go get –”

“I’m applying pressure – Murphy, rip this up for me, I need more for bandages. Titus, go get something hot. We’re going to cauterize the wound –”

“Yes, of course, I’m so sorry, I –”

“Clarke,” Lexa says, her voice barely more than a whisper.

“Lexa!?” Clarke sinks to her knees, taking one of Lexa’s hands in both of hers and squeezing. “Lexa, I’m right here. We’re doing everything we can, you’re going to be fine, I promise –”

“Clarke, listen to me.”

“Yes, of course, anything –”

“It’s just a wound, Clarke, and only in my thigh. I’ve… had worse. There is something that is more important – what I was saying before… Maybe there’s a way… we can. Can be anything we want to be.” She hesitates, locks eyes with Clarke before continuing, and Clarke can’t help but notice there is the slightest stain of red at the corners of her mouth, bubbles of blood that froth with the breeze of her breath. “Be… with anyone we want to be with.”

“How?” Clarke says, her voice begging.

“The spirit… of the commander. When I die, it will find –”

“You’re not going to die, and I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything!”

“Clarke, listen to me –”

Titus hurries back into the room, clutching a branding iron, still glowing red-hot and white at the tip, in one hand and a damp cloth in the other. “This will do,” he says, as if to reassure, and Clarke nods shortly as he presses the cloth into her hands. Her skin stings a little where it comes into contact with the mixture, which she can now see is slightly green, which wets the cloth. It smells strongly medicinal, mingled with a mossy, almost rotting fragrance that she recognises as having been the poultice used on Jasper’s wounds, so long ago.

“Now, remove her clothing and clean it with this,” he says, and Clarke hastens to obey, ripping away Lexa’s trousers right above the wound, which she then dabs at with the cloth. Evidently, it hurts like a bitch, but Lexa doesn’t scream, just gasps and then bites down on her lip to keep quiet, knuckling at her side. Behind her, Murphy inhales sharply at the sight of the bullet hole, slowly revealing itself as Clarke cleans away the blood, silently thinking how incredible it is that something so small could draw so much blood.

“Lexa, this is going to hurt, okay?” Clarke says, casting a worried glance at the iron. Already, it is cooling; it is now or never.

“Do it,” Lexa hisses, and Titus plunges forward and down, thrusting the iron against her flesh.

Her scream is ear-splitting. It brings tears to Clarke’s eyes, sends jolts and twitches down her spine even as she speaks, muttering sweet things and words of comfort as much to comfort Lexa as to distract herself from the sound. Worse is the smell of burning, the smell of cooked flesh that turns her stomach and singes the hairs of her nostrils.

Then the iron is gone and Clarke presses a hand against the blistered flesh instead, reaching up with another to push the hair out of Lexa’s eyes and wipe the sweat that runs in rivulets from her clammy forehead.

Clarke is filled with admiration as Lexa clings to consciousness, her strength shining through even as welts rise on her naked flesh, shining an angry red. Biting her lip, she locks eyes with Clarke, and that’s when Clarke knows, undoubtedly, that she’s going to make it. The words she had been so prepared to speak – _Reshop, Heda_ – die on her lips, and instead she bends over to press them into a kiss on Lexa’s forehead, relief washing over her with the surety of the coming in of the tides.

* * *

“ _Heda_ , this has never before been done. I must advise that you –”

“I have had enough of your advice, Titus,” Lexa says shortly. “In fact, I’ve had enough of _you_. You betrayed me.” Her eyes are hard as flint, but Clarke sees the struggle beneath. After all, this is Titus, the man who is almost a father to her. Suddenly, this exchange seems much to private to witness. Clarke casts her gaze downwards, hands clasped respectfully behind her back as she stands at the foot of Lexa’s sickbed.

“You will do as I command,” Lexa continues, propping herself up higher on the pillows. Titus makes as if to help her, but she waves him away with a withering glare and he returns, bowed-shouldered, to his position a foot away from the edge of the bed. “First, promise. _Promise_ me that you will never attempt to hurt Clarke again.”

“I –”

“ _Promise_ ,” Lexa insists.

“Yes, Heda,” Titus says meekly, through tight lips. “I promise.”

“Second, you will follow the commands I give you now, though they go against everything we know. Promise, Titus.”

“I promise,” he repeats. “Anything you ask, Commander.”

“Good. Now, Clarke,” Lexa says, turning her head to face her and beckoning her forward. Her expression is soft, her skin still a little blotchy and tear-streaked from what had transpired mere hours ago. She darts her tongue out briefly, wetting her lips so they glisten in the candlelight.

Clarke walks past Titus without even acknowledging him, and perches delicately on the edge of the bed, so as not to disturb the commander. The bleeding has finally ceased, the fresh bandages wrapped around the bullet wound unstained as yet, but she is still unwilling to risk it. “Yes, Lexa.”

“I told you that when I die, the spirit of the commander will find another.”

“I –”

“Ah! Don’t you trust me?”

 _Trust._ Clarke remembers the cast of the moon on Lexa’s face as she revealed her betrayal. Clarke remembers the agony that had coursed through her when, later, she had been forced to irradiate level five, to save the people that Lexa had condemned. Clarke remembers how it had felt to recall their first kiss after that moment, like a chemical burn on her lips that refused to fade away no matter how many times she scrubbed at them.

But Clarke also remembers the gentleness of Lexa’s kiss, the comfort provided by her caress. Clarke remembers the falling away of the mask from her eyes, the hesitation in her movements as she almost confessed her love in her own chambers. Clarke remembers how it felt to hold her, and to be held. How soft she was, and how hard, how strong at the same time. She remembers her Commander, and she remembers how much she loves her.

“I do,” Clarke says, in a voice that rasps around the lump in her throat, raw and real.

“Then listen to me, Clarke, and listen well. I told you that when I die, my spirit will find another to inhabit. The next commander. At least, this is what tradition dictates.”

Lexa looks at Titus. “But tradition also dictates that a commander does not feel. That love is weakness, and to love is to be weak.” He bows his head, eyes gleaming with something that might be shame.

She looks back at Clarke with eyes that burn like coals. “And I have decided that maybe I do not like this tradition. So I have decided to abandon it. I, Commander Lexa of the Coalition of the Thirteen Clans, renounce my position as commander. From this day henceforth, I shall no longer be Heda.”

Clarke can’t help her sharp intake of breath, the fractional widening of her eyes. This is Lexa, who has always put her people first. “Lexa, what about your people?”

Grasping Clarke’s hand with warm fingers, Lexa smiles. “Clarke… you _are_ my people, now.”

* * *

The chip lands in the dish with a metallic clink. Clarke stands directly in front of Murphy, who looks on reservedly, watching as Titus stitches the incision on the back of Lexa’s neck closed carefully, biting his lip as if to hold back tears. He dabs at the wound with a swab of alcohol from the same thick bottle he had had Lexa drink from before beginning the surgery. Incredibly, she hasn’t made a sound.

“It’s an AI,” Murphy whispers, stunned, and Clarke realises he is right.

She frowns. “ _That’s_ the commander?”

“The spirit of the commander, yes,” Titus answers abruptly, looking at it with a wonder that borders on adoration. “Now, it will choose another.” He picks up the dish and walks out of the room, brushing brusquely past them. “Tend to her,” he instructs, just before he disappears out of the room.

 _As if I needed telling_ , Clarke thinks, already rolling Lexa as smoothly as possible onto her back, cradling her head so her neck stays as still as possible.

“I hope you were sure about this,” Clarke says, rubbing her thumb across Lexa’s open hand, the creases and life line on her palm grooves that mark her own skin as she touches them.

Lexa’s eyes crack open slightly, so she can see Clarke through the haze of her lashes. All that is visible is the blonde halo of Clarke’s hair; if it weren’t for the sweet, familiar timbre of her voice, she would assume it was an angel, come to free her from the pain in her thigh, and now in her neck. _Maybe it is,_ she thinks, and feels her mouth curl involuntarily.

“We are all given a choice, Clarke,” she says, what’s left of her voice breaking as it finds its way out through dry lips, as desperate to be heard as she is to live, despite the throbbing pain that has yet to subside. “I chose you.”


End file.
